The Laboratory of C.H.U.N.K. 666

Saturday, April 24, 2004

Organ Donor Invite

For the uninitiated or simply forgetful, the Organ Donor is the first CHUNK666 tallbike, constructed sometime in the winter of 1992-1993.

I use the term "constructed" in the loosest sense, as those were the early days of CHUNK engineering. Organ Donor also shares the distinction of being one of the first three CHUNK bikes ever built, along with the first transmutation of the Orb, and, of course, the O.C. [original chopper]. However, it is the last of those three brothers (although pieces of the O.C. live on in granddaddy).

That Organ Donor has survived as long as it has is doubly amazing, not only because of its progenitor status, but also because it’s a tallbike of somewhat dubious design and questionable welding expertise. The headset, for example, has been welded shut this whole time. Some speculate that its longevity may have something to do with the fact it was buried under a pile of bikes in various states of disrepair in the corner of the shop for about 3 to 5 years, sparing it some mileage, and, more importantly, protecting it from the usual tribulations of the Portland climate.

Anyways, the tourney.

There was a real bona fide tournament bracket, a panel of judges, an emcee that knew many of the fine details of what was going on, and contestants who weren't too drunk from previous events to know what was going on. The Family Truxster grill-long-bike was up and cookin' (it had begun to show some sag-issues, and its crankset was a little hoopty, so Thud and me threw an extra gusset in there. Although, in the process, we became somewhat mystified as to how Spidey had welded the motorcycle seat in place without burning all the vinyl covering off). Sara Stout, decked out in a doctor's smock, brought her first aid sidecar, complete with a big red cross flag. When a contestant fell hard, they were treated to a healthly shot of whiskey.

The space at was larger and more open than our usual jousting arenas, which are narrow and leave the jousters little room to dodge, much less turn around. With the new field, about half the matches ended in the traditional full-on crash with one jouster falling, while the other half resulted in what might be best described as one-on-one tallbike derby matches, where the contestants chased each other around, trying to line back up for another pass with the lance.

This was… interesting. I'll admit we kind of planned it to turn out this way. We wanted to get rid of those ridiculous matches where determining the winner required pass after pass after pass (usually from both riders knocking each other over simultaneously, or from both riders dropping their lances, but remaining upright). We figured some form of "continuation" rule, where you could just spin around go freeform to end the match, would speed things up.

And speed things up it did. Almost every match ended in one "pass," with about half of them going into the "continuation" stage. The result was we did the entire tournament in about two hours, including two or three pre-qualification matches, which sucked because NO-ONE got drunk enough, which meant NO-ONE had as much fun as they could have, and theatricality was disappointing. Over planning sucks. However, we did get a crowd of 200+ spectators, so that's worth something. And the weather was great, which is not a dependable thing in April in Portland.

It wasn't the greatest day for the CHUNK team overall. Despite (and perhaps because of) hosting the event we only mustered a side of five riders out of a field of sixteen. I fell in my opening match (man, he didn't even hit me!), as did Rino. Megulon-5, Thud, and Big B. were able to advance to the second round, although only Big B. could get into the semi-finals.

Megulon-5 and Thud were dismounted by the eventual finalists, Messman (an unaffliated polo player from Seattle) and Fingers (reppin' the Dead Babies). Messman and Fingers were required to do a best two-out-of-three format in the finals, and they responded by really pummeling the Bicycle Jesus out of each other, although neither could get a dismount.

Messman, who had had previous long bouts with Megulon-5 and others, began to look a little battered, rubbing his chest and grimacing a lot. In the second round of the final, he suddenly decided it was time to get serious, and said, "Wait a sec, let me take off my glasses." This menancing tagline was apparently effective enough to intimidate Fingers, as Messman won the bout and the title.

After sitting around the park for another two hours or so, we relocated and picked up where we left off with a nice cold keg at the nearest lab, Chunkstation Oscar. Bracketmaster Billdozer rode all the way home and back so he could get his propane flamethrower, and rode around in front of the house, not aware that a police cruiser was curiously right behind him. More curiously, the cop just drove on once Billdozer got out of the way.